


The Next Town

by kres



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-17
Updated: 2007-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kres/pseuds/kres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean keeps to the yellow line.</p><p>[originally posted at kres.livejournal.com]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Town

**Author's Note:**

> **Context:** post season 2  
>  **Beta:** Many thanks to the sharp-eyed and insightful betas, ggreenapple and lemmealone. All remaining mistakes are mine and mine only.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Just taking them for a ride. Don't own, don't sue.  
>  **Notes:** For those who know me from SG-1: this is _Pick Up Here_ , Winchester style ;)=

The road is everywhere.

The concrete spans left, front and right, and the yellow line runs in the middle, straight like a shot, and bold solid. Do not pass. Do not stray – although you couldn’t tell, because there are no side lines, no rumble strips. No speed limit.

The sun is high, invisible, and the concrete is baking slowly under the white, impenetrable sky. The fringe of gray mountains in the distance wraps the valley in a low, flickering embrace.

It’s been a long time, Dean thinks; long time since the last town. Long time since the last stop for gas, food or lodging. Long time since he ate, since he drank anything. He has a six-pack of beer in the back of the car, on the floor, wedged between the front and the back seat, but he won’t drink while he’s driving. He won’t drink until he finds some shade, until he can rest his eyes for a little bit, cool down. He blinks, rubs his eyes with one hand. His skin feels gritty and rough, like sandpaper. The mountains on the horizon are not getting closer.

The fuel indicator points to the sky, halfway between full and empty.

Dean shifts on the seat, switches his hands on the bottom of the steering wheel, leans his elbow out of the rolled-down window. There is no wind today, the air flows smooth and slow outside; the car is gliding in a pocket of heat under the weight of the empty sky. The wheels rumble when one concrete plate meets another – thump-thump. The frame rattles, then stills, and he is driving in silence again.

There is going to be another plate of concrete, somewhere in the near future, he knows. There’s going to be an exit, somewhere in the next town. There’s gotta be.

It’s been a long time since he saw anyone. Longer time since he talked to anybody. There was a jukebox, he thinks, and a row of shot glasses, glimmering like jewels in the smoky light. There was his face – his older face – looking back at him from the tiled mirror on the other side of the bar. There was a reflection of a woman in the upside-down wineglasses over the smooth tabletop. She had soft hands. Cool, when she touched his jaw, tilted him up, and he went. She had a cooler mouth.

Dean doesn’t remember what she looked like.

There is a shadow on the horizon, on his side of the yellow line. Dean squints in the sunlight. The air over the concrete is glimmering in the heat, cutting the shadow in two, multiplying it into false reflections.

He doesn’t remember what she looked like, but she had cool hands and a cooler mouth, and when she said—

When she said—

The shadow is getting closer; thin and sharp, like a lone tree, burnt and black, or a broken telephone pole, the power lines snatched long ago by anonymous scavengers. There is a car-sized distance between the shadow and the yellow line, and when Dean gets close enough to see, the shadow resolves itself into a man.

A man, standing on the road, waiting. Worn, ragged clothes. Sneakers. A backpack over one shoulder. Too many layers for this kind of heat.

Dean slows down, even though the man doesn’t signal him to stop. It feels appropriate, somehow, the unwritten rules of an empty road. Dean hasn’t seen anyone else around here for a while, so it goes without saying that this stranger needs a lift to the next town.

The Impala rolls to a stop, a perfect distance between the man on the road and the passenger side door; a perfect distance between the front wheels of the car and the place where this concrete plate meets another.

Dean leans over the seat, rolls down the passenger side window. “Hey, man. Where’ya headed?”

The stranger leans in, folds himself in half to look inside the car. He is tall, too tall somehow; he doesn’t fit in the wide and flat expanse of the road. He is taller than the mountains. You can’t be taller than the mountains, Dean thinks. It’s against logic.

The stranger looks at him for a moment, and Dean consciously tries to relax, to speak with the easy lines of his body. I’m not a threat, he says. You’re not a threat. Just get in and let’s go. I’ve got beer in the back seat. It’s been a long time since I talked to anyone.

The row of the shot glasses, so neat. The fingers on his wrist, on his collarbone, so cold. She said, don’t look now. Don’t look.

The stranger studies him for a minute, and then smiles, blinding, unexpected. There are little crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes. His hair is short, cut close and simple. Uneven, like he cut it himself. His face is sun-burnt, wide open. 

“To the next town,” he says. He opens the door and gets in, throws his backpack over and behind the seat.

Dean nods, and then they’re moving.

*

“I’m Sam,” says the man, and Dean turns to look at him, disoriented. They’ve been driving in silence for a while now – thump-thump, go the wheels, the air on the horizon shivers, the line of the mountains doesn’t change – and Dean forgot there were supposed to be introductions. It’s been a long time since he talked to anyone. Since he met anyone new.

He clears his throat. “Dean,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” He’s being polite.

“Nice to meet you too, Dean,” says Sam, and he’s being polite, too. These are the rules.

Sam shifts in his seat, settles with his knees against the dashboard. His jeans are worn, with holes patched in places, the patches fraying at the edges. “So,” he says, “how long have you been on the road?”

“A while.” Dean checks the rearview mirror. There is nobody behind them. Nobody ahead. “The better part of the day now, I think.” And then, “I’m good for a couple more hours, no sweat.” He doesn’t know where that came from; this feeling like he should be explaining himself. It makes him uncomfortable. “Hey,” he says, pointing with his head to the back seat. “You want a beer?”

He gets a confused look. “A beer?”

“Yeah,” he says. And again, he can’t swallow an explanation. “It’s warm, though. Been a while since it saw a fridge. Help yourself.”

Sam nods, but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t reach behind the seat, just stays where he is. He doesn’t like warm beer, Dean thinks. Fair enough: Dean doesn’t like it either.

They drive in silence for a while. Outside, the heat glides over the roof of the car, smooth and slow like a flame. Inside, sweat is beading at Dean’s hairline, on his lower back, under his armpits. The sun is in zenith, somewhere beyond the white, but adjusting the visor doesn’t help.

“We could use some shade,” Sam says, quietly, like an afterthought, and when Dean looks over, his passenger is looking straight ahead, along the yellow line, at the sun-scorched concrete. 

“For the beer, you know. To cool it down.”

Dean looks back at the road. “There is no shade,” he says. “I’ve been driving a while, and I haven’t seen anything.”

Sam nods, like he agrees. “Are you sure? I bet if.”

He doesn’t finish, and Dean doesn’t ask him to. He feels uncomfortable, like he shouldn’t be talking to this man at all. Sweat trickles between his shoulder blades. His jeans feel tight, hot. He shifts in the seat again, straightens his legs, and catches a lingering glance from Sam. He freezes, tightens his hands on the wheel.

Maybe he _is_ a threat, he thinks. Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped.

Maybe I should have thought about bringing a weapon.

But when he looks over again, Sam is looking down, pulling a loose thread on his jeans, weaving it around his finger. He has long fingers. Short nails, with pockets of black dirt beneath. A scrape on his right wrist. A fresh wound, Dean thinks. Healed barely days ago.

“I bet there’s a tree, you know,” Sam says, after a moment. “If you look, you’ll see it.” He raises his head, points with his chin to an indeterminate point at the horizon, along the yellow line.

“Just look ahead,” he says. “Look closely. There’s some shade, right there. We could stop, have a drink.” His voice is soft, quiet. Dean can barely hear it over the thrum of the tires on the concrete. “We could cool down. Have some rest. You’re probably tired.”

Thump-thump, goes the car. Heat pools at the small of Dean’s back. Sweat itches on the insides of his thighs.

“Aren’t you tired?” asks Sam.

Dean straightens in the seat, adjusts his hands on the steering wheel. Ten to two. The sun is in zenith outside. The fuel indicator points to the sky. His knuckles are burning.

“There is no shade,” he says. He blinks at the horizon, blinks out the white, blinks out the sweat beading at his eyebrow, trickling into his eyes. “I’ve been driving a while, and I haven’t seen anything.”

Sam doesn’t contradict him again. He falls silent, and looks outside his window, up at the sky. They drive. The road is empty. Dean keeps to the yellow line.

*

“So, you visiting someone here? Family?”

Again, he forgot Sam was sitting beside him. He was thinking about the smoke, and the lights. About the sharp, nauseating combination of tequila and lime. The cool hands. It must have been here, somewhere. He’ll find the place again, and he’ll ask her. He’ll ask her—

“Dean?”

He blinks. Cobwebs and smoke. “What? Oh, sorry.” He shakes his head, remembers the question. “No, just passing. I got a long way to go. No time for stops along the way, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Sam has been sleeping, this past hour. His voice is raspy, quiet. His feet are bare; he took off the sneakers at some point, threw them into the back seat. Dean wanted to protest – it’s his baby, nobody treats her like that – but he didn’t.

Sam is taller than mountains. He is taller than Dean. It didn’t seem appropriate.

“How about you?” Dean asks. He isn’t really interested, he’s just keeping up the conversation. It’s the rule of the road.

Sam smiles at that, a little uneasy. “I’m visiting, all right.” He looks at Dean like he wants to ask something, but changes his mind. “My father,” he says at last. “He used to hang around here. He doesn’t anymore.”

The pause is meaningful enough, so Dean prompts, obediently, “What happened?”

“He moved.”

Dean nods. Better than the alternative. “Didn’t like the weather? Or the housing conditions?”

Sam snorts. “Both, I guess.” He looks out of the passenger window again. “You gotta admit, man, these surroundings can get a little boring after a while.”

Dean puts his right hand at the bottom of the wheel, and with his left, he reaches out of the window, spreads his palm wide. The stream of warm air runs between his fingers; a warm, gentle pressure. He drives like this for a moment. Sam is watching him, silent.

“I like it here,” Dean says, folding his hand. “It’s peaceful. I wouldn’t want to move.”

Sam smiles at him, gently. “Yeah, I know.” He sighs, rubs his face. A streak of bright red catches Dean’s eye, but when he glances over, the healed wound on Sam’s hand is dark and dried up. Dean blinks; the heat is blurring his vision.

“Hey, would you let me drive?”

The question is simple, but for some reason it sets Dean’s teeth on edge. He frowns at his passenger, looks for a good argument to accompany the no, apart from the obvious: dude, it’s my car. He still needs to explain himself, and he still doesn’t know why.

Sam meets his eyes openly. His face is shining with sweat, and the small, uneven tips of his hair are curling wet against his sun-burnt forehead. He has smudges of dirt on the side of his neck, dark and crusted like old blood. Dean didn’t notice them before. He looks closer. Sam doesn’t look away. His t-shirt is thin, faded, the collar weaving loosely around his throat, and there is another fresh bruise, right there on his collarbone, bright and purple.

Dean’s throat is dry. “Where did you get that? You runnin’ from somethin’?”

Sam touches his fingers to his throat, looks down at his wrist. And then he smiles, of all things.

“No, I’m not running,” he says. He leans back in his seat, half-turned toward Dean. His smile is gentle and easy, contagious. “Come on, man. Let me drive. I know you could use a break.”

And a beer, Dean thinks; he can’t help it. “We can switch in the next town,” he says. Autopilot; he’s not letting anyone else drive, no way in hell.

Sam doesn’t stop smiling. “We can switch over there,” he says. “Look.”

Dean looks, automatically, but there is nothing ahead. The road is empty, the yellow line is where it’s always been, and the gray mountains on the horizon haven’t changed.

Thump-thump, goes the car, and Dean flinches, and for a moment he lets go of the steering wheel. The car swerves, rolls away from the middle of the road, and Dean grasps the wheel with both hands, wrenches it back to the left.

“Look,” Sam says again, urgently. “Dean, look.”

Dean is still trying to bring the car back to the lane. The frame is bouncing, shaking, the wheel is hard to control, and his concentration is slipping, he can’t listen to anything, he can’t look—

Don’t look, she said. Don’t look now, Dean.

“There’s a tree,” Sam is saying, quiet and fast, and very close to Dean’s ear. “There’s a patch of grass around the tree under the shade. It’s so cool there, and the grass is so soft, you’d love to lie there and rest for a moment. It’s just this one place, and it’s right here, we’re just passing by. Look, Dean.” Sam’s voice is getting high, breathless. “Please, man. Please, just look.”

And Dean does. And then he stomps on the brake.

*

The tree is low, twisted, and very, very green. The grass around it is uneven, drying in places, but Dean can’t remember when he last saw anything so alive, so vibrant with color. The concrete is broken and bulging around it, and it looks as if the tree just burst out from underneath, and the grass grew all over the cracks and the debris.

The tree is on the other side of the yellow line, a car-sized space beyond the left lane, and Dean hesitates before he crosses over – he can feel the phantom cars passing through him, and his skin shrinks from their imagined impact.

There is a warm hand on his shoulder, and he flinches, but it’s not from fear. He just wasn’t expecting it – Sam is so quiet behind him, barefoot on the sun-dried concrete.

“Come on, man,” Sam says, quietly. He is holding the six-pack in his hand, and grinning widely at Dean. His teeth are very white on his tan-darkened face. “This looks awesome. Real good job, man. I’m proud of you. Now come on.” He steps around Dean and goes into the shade.

Dean shrugs off the phantom cars with a shiver, and follows him.

*

The beer is still warm, but the grass is soft, just like Sam said. They’re drinking in silence, sprawled in the shadow, watching the Impala bake in the sun on the other side of the yellow line. In the shimmering air the car looks almost like a phantom itself, and if Dean didn’t know the texture of the steering wheel by heart, if he didn’t remember the soft give of the seats and the scorching heat of the frame in the sunlight under his own fingers, he could forget that his car was even real, that it was there, that they were both driving a minute, an hour, a moment ago.

They should probably get back on the road. It’s a long way—

“Hey, Dean.”

He turns his head. Sam is lying with his back propped against the tree. His eyes are half-lidded, and he’s got a beer bottle halfway to his lips.

“What?” Dean says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. The sunlight is licking his toes; he took his shoes off, left them on the edge of the lane, and the grass patch is not big enough for the both of them.

“We have time,” says Sam, and brings the bottle to his mouth. Dean watches him drink. There is a trickle of sweat on the side of Sam’s neck, running along the blood-dark smudges. Dean shifts, uncrosses his legs, bends his knees to touch the soles of his feet to the cool grass. He feels uneasy. Something heavy is uncoiling slowly in his gut. He can’t give a name to it, but it feels familiar.

It’s been a while since he met anyone.

God, what is he even thinking? He looks away. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

His bottle is empty. The remains of the six-pack are in the deep shade, next to Sam, but Dean doesn’t want to reach, or ask for another beer. Doesn’t want to look.

“Nope.” 

There’s a rustle, and then something pokes him on the shoulder. He half-turns, and a warm bottle slips into his hand. He takes it.

“I’m just sittin’ in the shade,” Sam says, laying back. “Chillin’. I’ve had enough of being somewhere, for now.” He points at Dean with the beer. “You should do that, too. We’ll both get back on the road soon enough.”

Dean twists off the cap. “Yeah. We will.” He takes a pull. Leftover bubbles tickle his mouth, and the beer is too warm and too hoppy. It’s disgusting.

Dean latches onto the bottle, drains more than a half of it in one go. He recognizes the feeling in his gut now – it’s painful, like longing. Although for what, he has no idea.

*

“We should take the bottles with us.”

Sam laughs. “No way, man. This time I’m playing it safe.”

He is standing barefoot on the edge of the grass, head still in shadow. He steps into Dean’s way when Dean makes a move to clean up their rest stop. He towers over Dean, like the mountains. It’s annoying.

Dean frowns. “What do you mean, playing it safe?”

Sam runs a hand through his hair. Smiles an uneasy smile, lightning quick. “Just go back to the car, okay? I’ll clean up.”

It sounds too much like an order, and for a moment there Dean wants to protest, but he can’t find a real reason to do that. So he turns and goes back to the car.

It’s boiling hot inside. He opens the door through the rolled-down window, slides carefully into the seat. The steering wheel burns his fingers.

Outside, Sam is playing. He pours lines in the grass with leftover beer, and then sets the five bottles upright, one by one, like he’s arranging them into some careful design; Dean can’t see what it is from the car. The last bottle goes in the middle, and when Sam’s finished, he crushes the cardboard box in his hands and stands up, looking like he’s contemplating what to do with it. At last he sticks the crumpled box between the branches, high, so high Dean could never reach.

Yeah, Dean thinks, it’s annoying, that’s what it is.

“You done?” he says, irritably, as Sam hops back to the car, sneakers in hand, toes curling on the hot concrete.

Sam just grins at him, and something pulls sharp and unexpected at Dean’s chest. He feels hazy. It’s the heat, teamed up with the beer. It’s playing with his sense of perception.

He doesn’t open the car for Sam; lets him burn his fingers on the polished door handle.

*

“That’s my exit, man. You wanna drop me off?”

Dean squints at the road. There is no exit. The horizon is as white and as blurry as always.

They’ve been driving in silence for a couple of hours now. From time to time, Sam would ask him a question, or tell him a joke, unrelated to anything, just out of the blue, and they would laugh. Dean can’t remember any of the jokes now, and he doesn’t know if he answered any questions, but there’s a warm feeling in his gut – they had fun, he knows that. And he doesn’t want it to end, not yet.

“We can’t be far from the next town,” he says. “You sure you wanna leave?”

Sam is looking out of the window. “No, I don’t. But I have to.” He sounds serious, and a little sad. “It’s my exit, Dean, and I want you to take it. Drop me off by some gas station, okay? So I won’t have to go all the way down there on foot.”

“They don’t allow pedestrians on the ramp,” says Dean. “It’s dangerous.”

Sam is nodding. “Exactly.”

They drive in silence for another mile or two. It’s comfortable, but then Sam lays a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and leans in. “Hey, man. Don’t miss it.”

“Don’t miss what?” Dean asks. The hand on his shoulder is warm, too warm. It feels heavy and somehow intrusive, and Dean wants to shake it off, but Sam moves away before he has the chance.

“Never mind,” Sam says. “Forget about the exit. Just let me out.” He reaches behind the seat, takes his backpack. “Nothing’s gonna happen if you just let me out.”

He sounds reasonable enough, so Dean takes his foot off the gas and steers the Impala off to the side. When they stop, Sam doesn’t get out right away. He sits in the passenger seat, holding his backpack in both hands. His knuckles are white, and the dirt under his nails looks even darker in contrast.

Dean casts him a questioning glance. “You wanna go further? It’s no problem, man. We should be in—”

“Don’t.” Sam raises a hand. “Just… don’t, okay?” He opens the door, sets one foot out of the car. He is not looking at Dean, and Dean doesn’t say anything. He waits for Sam to get out and go wherever he has to go.

It’s foolish, he thinks, irritated. They should be in the next town by sunset. Sam could catch a next ride there, and Dean could get a few hours of sleep. He could use some sleep. They never switched behind the wheel. Perhaps they should have.

“Look, Dean,” Sam says. “It’s been nice, man, just… hanging out. I’m really glad we could do that. Thank you.” He looks up, meets Dean’s eyes. He looks like he’s smiling, but Dean can tell there is something wrong with that smile. It’s chilling, to realize that, and Dean wants to say something, he knows he should, but he has no idea what. The context of the conversation is slipping away.

“Yeah,” he says, frowning at his own words, too light, too casual. “Anytime, man.”

Sam nods. “Yeah, anytime.” He unfolds himself from the seat, gets out and shuts the door. “See you around,” he says over his shoulder. Then he turns and steps away from the car, into the shimmering heat.

Dean watches him out of the passenger side window, and the thoughts are escaping him already. There should be something more, he feels, something else he should have said, something better. Something that would maybe keep Sam from leaving the car, something that would convince him it’s better to keep going. It’s dangerous out here, and that backpack seemed like it was empty, he didn’t even have water, and God knows how long until someone else passes by to pick him up, and while Dean has a car with a half tank of gas, his brother has just a pair of worn shoes—

Dean doubles over. 

_Sam_ , he says, but he can’t breathe. _Jesus, Sam._

He scrambles to open the door, staggers out of the car. His vision blurs, disappears, turns into shifting squares of gold and green and oxygen deprivation, so he bends in half, reaches blindly and burns his palms on the hood of the Impala. The squares dance away and fade, and he breathes, and looks up, blinking, curling his fingers.

Sam is gone. There is nothing there but miles and miles of hot, white concrete, forever unchanging, and a string of gray mountains, shimmering in the unreachable distance.

Dean has forgotten his brother again.

He bends in half and vomits into the dirt.

*

The sun is in zenith, somewhere beyond the impenetrable sky, and on the side of the lane, the Impala sits quietly, baking in the slow heat.

Dean is lying on his back with his hands outstretched, unfocused eyes tracing imagined shapes in the empty air.

It always comes back like this, a carousel of images in a silent, black-and-white movie. The memory of the order of things comes first, and it calms him down enough so he won’t break and throw himself out of the car at full speed, or do something equally unreasonable.

It’s like a safety net for his brain. He knows it’s been placed there for a reason.

So, the first is the order of things. With it comes the calm, and the momentary sedative of the expectation that things will be explained. After that, he is lost again in the smoke and the lights. Tequila, of course, because how could he have chosen anything else than tequila for his last hurrah? Against reason, against logic, against everything that Sam asked, begged him not to do.

“Shh,” she said. “It’s okay. You did a smart thing, Dean Winchester.”

She had cool hands, cooler mouth, and he thought it was funny, that of all things he could have chosen to do, this was the easiest, the quickest possible way.

She had come unannounced, unasked for. Passed him by in a bar, wearing an unfamiliar face, but he knew anyway. Spent a long time looking, that past year, at faces with unmatching eyes. He caught her hand, and she leaned over him, over the smooth tabletop. They left the last round untouched on the bar.

In the motel room, she touched his mouth, pushed him back onto the bed, and he fell, didn’t say a thing. She stretched over him in a mockery of embrace, and he let her; moved his hands to her waist and held her. Alcohol was running sweet through his veins, and something moved, in the corner of his eye, outside the window. The doorknob rattled, there was a jingle of keys. His heart stuttered, and he wanted to wait, wanted to turn—

She held his jaw; cold, immovable fingers. “Don’t look now,” she said gently. “Don’t look.”

Then she leaned in, and tilted him up, and he went.

The carousel turns, the images blur and shift into one another, and Dean wants to close his eyes against the bright sky, but he can’t. Sam standing in the door turns into Sam standing on the side of the road, backpack slung over his shoulder, but the image is indistinct already, and it blurs and disappears before it even begins to hurt, and Dean knows what is coming next.

“Now that was very impressive.”

He grimaces. Sometimes she doesn’t come. Sometimes she likes to leave him on his own after this, and he gathers himself much more slowly before he goes back to sit in the car. This time she is, again, impatient.

“Fuck off and die, bitch,” he says, cheerfully. Pointless as it is, it still feels good to say.

She laughs, of course. She’s never done anything else. To her, he is endlessly amusing. “Aw, don’t be like that. Just look what you’ve done. I’m really proud of you, Dean.”

He doesn’t say anything, just lies there and breathes.

She comes closer, steps into his line of sight. She is black-haired this time, in that slinky black dress, and she is the first one he ever saw. It must be some occasion.

“Come on,” she says. “Up. Or do you want me to help you?”

And he still listens to her, after all this time; his stupid body should know better by now. Slowly, he props himself on his elbows, and looks to where she is pointing with her pale, naked arm.

The tree is right behind her, sprouting from the white concrete, the patch of grass surrounding it this time violently green. In the shade, empty beer bottles are lying right where Sam left them, and Dean wants to throw up again.

She smiles at him, brightly. “Amazing, isn’t it? And here, I thought he’d never make you learn.” 

She walks over to the tree, steps onto the grass and reaches out as if to touch the leaves, but hesitates. The crushed piece of cardboard is still stuck between the branches. She frowns at it, then looks down. Tilts her head, and studies the bottles for a while.

At last, she bares her teeth. “Funny,” she says, dryly. “Ah, little Sammy, such a funny guy.” She nudges one of the bottles with her bare foot. The bottle topples over, and rolls away. She sighs. “Almost makes you wish it worked in here, doesn’t it?” She nudges another bottle and turns another bright smile on Dean. Her small teeth are sharp, and very, very white. “Tough luck, kid. You’ll have to try something else.” She pauses. Her voice is mockingly sweet. “Oh, wait. You already tried.”

The bottle topples over, and rolls away, and the carousel turns again.

_Just look, you stubborn son of a bitch._

One hand on the wheel, the other twisted behind his back. He pulled, almost wrenched his own shoulder out of its socket. Empty beer bottle on the seat between them, and he had a weapon, right there. Smashed the bottle against the edge of the rolled-down window, and struck blind, the broken glass grazing, ripping the skin.

_This time I’m playing it safe._

She is still standing in the shade when he blinks away the memory. Her smile is still bright, unchanging.

“That wasn’t too smooth, by the way,” she says. “Fun to watch, though. And oh dear, he was trying so hard.” She kicks the last two bottles, lightly, like an afterthought, and then shrugs. “Well, enough with the fun now. Back to business.”

She steps from under the tree. Dean hasn’t moved from the middle of the lane. He feels good there. He thinks he might stay.

He knows she won’t let him.

He still doesn’t move when she passes him and walks off into the white. He waits for the parting shot. There always is one.

And sure enough, she calls after a moment, and it’s so faint he can’t distinguish between her voice in the void and her voice in his head anymore.

“Focus next time. I know you two can do better than this.”

And then she’s gone, and in front of him, the tree bursts into flames.

Dean watches it burn for a while. And of course, it burns high and bright, but it never burns down, so eventually he gets tired of watching. He stands up and dusts himself off. He needs to get back on the road.

__  
Now I been out in the desert, just doin' my time  
Searchin' through the dust, lookin' for a sign  
If there's a light up ahead well brother I don't know  
But I got this fever burnin' in my soul  
So let's take the good times as they go  
And I'll meet you further on up the road 

_ Further On (Up the Road), Bruce Springsteen  
_


End file.
